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Replacing SAICM: Experts call for a ”hybrid model”

Experts call for a ”hybrid model” to replace the UN chemicals strategy Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) after 2020.

The UN chemicals strategy SAICM has a mandate that expires 2020. Discussions about what will replace SAICM after 2020 are going on. A number of reports have earlier highlighted that the shortages with the present SACIM partly stem from the fact that it is a voluntary agreement, with neither implementation, nor follow up and reporting requirements. This also results in insufficient financing mechanisms for the SAICM work, as donors expect their funds to efficiently deliver results that can be followed up.

With funding from the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian Societies for Nature Conservation, together and the Danish Ecological Council, commissioned experts to write a report with advice for what the successor to SAICM should look like, to be able to deliver on the goals of the strategy. The experts propose a “hybrid mode”, with voluntary and legally binding elements, where some of the latter may draw upon ideas from the Paris Agreement for climate.

The report contains advice for both the SAICM process, and for the High Ambition Alliance on Chemicals and Waste, formed in 2017 to support the former.